U.S. Pat. No. 3,022,772, issued Feb. 27, 1962 and assigned to the assignee of this invention, describes a motor vehicle power steering gear including a housing, a pitman shaft linked to steered wheels of the motor vehicle, a sector gear on the pitman shaft, a worm shaft linked to a manual steering wheel of the motor vehicle, a rack piston having a rack gear thereon meshing with the sector gear on the pitman shaft, and a ball screw between the rack piston and the worm shaft which converts rotation of the worm shaft into linear translation of the rack piston in a bore in the steering gear housing. The ball screw consists of a helical passage between the rack piston and the worm shaft, a U-shaped crossover tube on the rack piston which cooperates with the helical passage in defining an endless ball circuit, and a plurality of bearing balls which roll in the ball circuit concurrent with rotation of the worm shaft relative to the rack piston. A metal strap clamped to the rack piston retains the crossover tube on the rack piston against thrust induced by the bearing balls urging dislodgment of the crossover tube from the rack piston. A crossover tube retainer according to this invention is a novel alternative to the metal strap described in the aforesaid U.S. Pat. No. 3,022,772.